The world today

[oakfarm]

First I’m not an expert, everything I write here should be taken with a pinch of salt. That said, if I have understood it correctly. After the US election with Trump and Sanders, people said that the political center was dead. Now the guy who talk about a political centre revolution, got more votes in the first round of the French president election than le Pen, the far right candidate.

Another observation. Back in the fall of 2001 people said that next terrorist attack could be even worse. Sixteen year later I am happy to say that terrorism in the west now means “‘lone wolf’ that hijack cars”. Well, obvious I'm not happy the attacks happen. But the latest attacks have looked more like a sign of desperation than of strange. And experts can point out there were more terrorism attacks in Europe in the 70s and 80s than it is now*. And they can speculate that islamic extremism already has been through to the rubbish-heap of history.

So I am casual optimistic about the world. For myself I am not optimistic.

*Not a perfect parable. There are much fewer attacks now, but single terror attacks often have higher body count than they had in those decades.

Comments

[jo]

You might find this interesting: far-right extremist groups are responsible for 73% of the deadly terrorist attacks since Sept 12 2001 (in the US).

[plicease]

I think the demise of the political center has been exaggerated. I think it was in either 2006 or 2008 the Republicans got such a shellacking that some pundits were asking if the Republicans had permanently been relegated to a regional political party. Of course that didn't happen and I think that now we are seeing the backlash against Trumpy and his ilk.

[jo]

For people outside the US, it's always weird to hear Americans talk about the centre (never mind the left) because both the Dems and Reps are very right-wing by international standards.

https://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2016

[plicease]

I am from Australia originally, so I have an unusual view of American politics, but I also sometimes find it weird to hear non-Americans talk about politics here. I agree that the Democrats are right of center and that the Republicans are crazy town, but I find much in that article that you have linked to be specious. The idea for example that Sanders would have with certainty beaten Trump based on polls that were conducted before intense scrutiny of a general election campaign is absurd.